Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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Question 7: To ask the Minister for Jobs; Enterprise and Innovation if he is committing any funding to the European Space Programme; and the cost of such funding to the State per year since such funding commenced. [14246/11]

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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A table outlining the expenditure since 1975 is available with this reply. Ireland became a member of the European Space Agency in 1975. The purpose of Ireland's membership of the ESA is to participate in the European space programme, thereby facilitating innovative Irish companies to develop leading edge space technologies and to commercially exploit their ESA participation. A total of €14.029 million has been committed in 2011 in respect of Ireland's subscription to the European space programme. The focus of the Irish ESA industrial strategy is to build scale in participating Irish companies by supporting technology and product development that can be exploited in both the commercial space and other non-space markets.

Ireland's ESA membership has contributed to the development of a highly knowledge-intensive industry sector with in excess of 70 Irish technology companies having secured ESA contracts since 2000. ESA participation has a demonstrated direct effect on the participating companies' ability to generate commercial export sales in the supply of products in the commercial space and non-space market. An analysis of Ireland's ESA membership in 2008 concluded that Irish ESA contractors generated a total turnover of €136 million in 2007. A recent survey by Enterprise Ireland of the top 19 Irish companies representing over 60% of activities in the space sector projects an increased growth in ESA-derived sales from €35 million in 2010 to €96 million by 2014. Employment in these companies is projected to almost double from 865 in 2008 to more than 1,600 in 2014 and 65% of these jobs are at graduate and postgraduate level. Irish Public Spending on ESA Space Programmes 1977-2010

*The figures for the period 1977 to 1999 are in MAU (Millions Unit of Account), which was in use at the time. The European Currency Unit ECU was a basket of the currencies of the European Community member states, used as the unit of account (AU) of the European Community before being replaced by the euro on 1 January 1999, at parity.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State for his reply which has covered most of the information I requested. Given the Minister of State's new-found insight into the problems the country is experiencing, has he considered using the services provided by the European Space Agency?

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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If the Deputy will forgive me, I did not quite understand his question.

Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Is the Minister of State travelling somewhere?

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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Not quite but I can tell the Deputy that in my own constituency of Cork East, which is also the constituency of his colleague, Deputy Sandra McLellan, we have Elfordstown which is doing a lot of work on commercial satellite technology and also research on space. I do not believe we should close our minds on this issue but rather have open minds and if commercial benefit can be derived from it, then we should take it. As to whether I am going to inhabit that medium, the jury is out on that one.